The Philadelphia Phillies’ lead television analyst has been doing what he’s doing for more than half of his life and has worked for the team in one capacity or another for almost two-thirds of it. He’s figured out what he wants to do and he’s not out to please everyone at this point.

Chris Wheeler, 66, is a 1967 Penn State broadcast journalism graduate who watched both Joe Paterno’s first and last head coaching appearances in person at Beaver Stadium. He was hired at Philadelphia’s WCAU straight out of college. On the recommendation of WCAU’s Andy Musser, longtime Phillies PR director Larry Shenk hired Wheeler as his assistant in July 1971 – the first season of Veterans Stadium. Wheeler began his 35-year tenure on the Phils’ various broadcast outlets in 1977.

Wheeler now pairs with TV play-by-play man Tom McCarthy for six innings and radio voice Scott Franzke for three during most Phillies broadcasts. Like any analyst, he has his fans and his detractors and he knows who both are and why they feel the way they do. He’s long since resolved trying to be anyone but himself.

Still, this type of Phils season in particular is when the “voices of the game” earn their money. A team-paid analyst especially must toe the line between honesty and advocacy. Wheeler does that well. He’s no homer; when the Phillies play poorly as they have, he says so. And his eyeball-guy sentiments fly in the face of the trend to toward slavish devotion to sabermetrics.

In an era where even Hall-of-Famers like Jon Miller can be fired by a team owner like the Orioles’ Peter Angelos for not “bleeding black and orange,” or Joe Morgan by ESPN for scoffing at sabergeeks, such stances require a measure of courage.

P-N: Are we witnessing the end of the Phillies as we’ve known them? Are they so old we’re to the point where the core might need to be blown up to start over? Or can this be fixed?

CW: Well, it’s not September. It’s June. It can be fixed. Things can get better if reinforcements arrive and some guys do what they’re supposed to do if they get healthy. But there’s a ton of ‘ifs’ involved when you’re struggling the way these guys are.

P-N: If you had to isolate the Phillies’ one or two root problems, in your mind, what are they?

CW: Number one would be simply not playing very good baseball. The bottom line in baseball is to give the other team no more than three outs. When you give them four or five, you lose a lot. They’ve just not played the game very well.

Number two would be the inability to get runners in from third with less than two outs. I know they have a very poor percentage. And when you play as many low-scoring games as this team’s gonna play, those runs are vital to winning or losing. That’s jumped up and bitten them.

P-N: The sabermetrics devotees are reported to have sunk Jon Miller and Joe Morgan at ESPN at the end of 2010. Morgan especially openly disparaged the concepts they preach. Where does you opinion fall on nouveau stats?

CW: Let me put it this way: I’m a 41-year baseball guy. And I totally understand that stuff and why it’s important and why people in baseball use it and why fans enjoy and the media enjoy it.

However, in my opinion, let me watch a guy play 162 games and I can tell you whether he can do this, that or the other thing. I wanna be around them, know what kind of people they are and how they compete. Whether it’ll match up with what the sabermetrics guys say – that a guy can’t go to his right 6 out of 10 times and get a ground ball? I don’t know.

But I know who can make plays and who can’t, who can swing the bat and who can’t. I know where you shade a guy and who’s a pull hitter and who produces when it counts. And you don’t have to tell me if I can watch them 162 games.

I’m not gonna pooh-pooh that stuff. But I think there’s still a place for human eyes, watching a game and paying attention. Still something to be said for baseball guys sitting behind home plate and looking through screens. Now, if you don’t pay attention and you’re just obsessed with numbers, what can I say?

P-N: Your favorite baseball movies and the most overrated ones?

CW: (Laughs.) Boy, I’m not a big movie guy, I gotta tell ya. But I love The Natural. The people who were in the movie could really baseball. Redford, you could tell, had played. When he would swing, it didn’t look like William Bendix trying to play Babe Ruth. And I loved Major League. The scene with Pedro Cerrano was so realistic where he was hitting one BB after another off fastballs and then couldn’t hit a breaking ball. It was so perfect.

P-N: But not Moneyball or Bull Durham?

CW: Well, I just saw Moneyball but I don’t like the whole Moneyball concept. I thought the movie was great. And the scouts, I thought they were really scouts. I thought they did a great job with the authenticity. But I wasn’t as enamored with that movie because – all the on-base percentage, it’s good to an extent. But what have [the A’s] won? They did pretty good with it for a while. But, unfortunately for them, with their economics, they can’t keep their players.

I don’t wanna come off as pooh-poohing numbers because I don’t feel that way. But to say that you wanna get nine guys on your offense who walk all the time, well, that’d be a lot of fun to watch. Play 3½-hour games while everyone goes 3-2 and fouls off eight pitches.

PN: Finally, everyone in our businesses can be a lightning rod for criticism in various ways. What do people say when they write to you?

CW: The ones who don’t like me, over the years, will say that I overanalyze or that they know all that stuff. My feeling has always been that I’m here trying to entertain and we have a new audience every night. And I learn something every day. The game fascinates me. I’ve always thought like a field person; I don’t think like a fan – which I can’t explain. I’m able to explain the game to that level.

I love the game. And when it starts, I just love to sit there and talk about what I’m seeing. I think most people have liked it over the years; some don’t. Some are never gonna like you. I used to take it personal when I first started. Now, I really don’t give a damn.

And it really bothered me for a long time. I used to think, ‘How can you talk about me that way? You don’t know me. I’m a really nice guy.’ And then finally I thought to myself, after 40 years, I know what I’m doing. I really don’t care anymore if somebody doesn’t like me. I’ve gotten past that point.

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